Only over the affair of the Gathering had she been able to argue that his place was with them.
“Grandfather won’t go with me driving the brake,” she pointed out, “and people will only worry him unnecessarily asking where you are, Drew. Besides,” she added, “we owe him this. He’s been at the Gatherings ever since he can remember and—it’s almost a miracle that he is able to go this time. He’s eighty-five, Drew.” She did not say that her grandfather might not live to see another Gathering, but Andrew knew that it was true. He had promised to take them, but it was now too late for him to enter any of the contests, which he had done for years.
He brought the estate car round early, but Daniel was already waiting. Tawse, whom he had known all his life, was now more or less an indoor servant and he had got him dressed for the occasion. Tessa’s eyes filled with tears as she saw the gallant old figure sitting upright in the wheel-chair, his heavy tartan plaid fastened by a gleaming cairngorm, his eyes as brightly blue as a mountain lochan on a summer’s day. He wore his bonnet bravely, although his kilt was hidden beneath the folds of two heavy tartan rugs which Tawse had wrapped securely round his legs.
“You’re so braw!” she told him, using the strange new word like a caress. “I’ll have to spend my time scaring all the other girls away!”
“Havers!” he said, but he was pleased. The bright eyes twinkled and the gnarled old hands fastened feebly over the crook of his stick, as if he might almost find the power to grasp it and walk. “You’ll be having your work cut out to keep the lads away! You’re looking braw enough yourself!”
“Will I really do?” she asked him earnestly, fastening about her throat a soft woollen scarf that was the colour of the heather when it is first in bloom. “Am I all right?”
“Ask Andrew,” he said, looking up over her head. Tessa swung round to see Andrew in Highland dress for the first time. He looked different, standing there in his kilt, a splendid figure, broad and tall and proud, like so many Meldrums before him, and suddenly she saw them all as one. He was the man who had loved her mother, and he was Daniel Meldrum in the fire and vigour of his youth when Janet Fraser had first come into his life; he was all these Meldrums down through the centuries who had loved and fought and dreamed here at Glenkeith surrounded by their everlasting hills.
“Drew,” she said, using the name Margaret called him by without realizing that she had done so, “Drew, you look splendid!”
He gazed down at her, taken aback by her frank admiration. He seemed to be seeing something beyond her, struggling with the vague ghost of a memory which would always haunt him, and then Hester came into the room, looking at all three of them as if, indeed, there had been a ghost in their midst.
Tessa wondered if her mother had ever gone to a Gathering, but she could not ask with Hester there.
“Are you not ready, Hester?” her father chided, seeing her still wearing the shabby print wrapper with which she greeted each succeeding day. “We don’t want to be late, you know.”
“Did you ever hear tell of me finding time to go to the Gathering all day long?” she asked. “There’s work to do at Glenkeith that you and Andrew—ay, and even Meg!— know nothing about. I’ll maybe get up in the afternoon with the bus. I’ll see”
Nobody argued. Her self-inflicted martyrdom was the very breath of life to Hester at times, but this morning she felt it necessary to add that there was no room in the brake for her, even if she had wished to go.
Tessa felt guilty because she was sure that Hester’s final remark had been directed towards her, but she was not sure whether Hester would have gone if there had been all the room in the world. She decided to forget Hester and enjoy herself. There was no point in letting Hester spoil her lovely day.
It was going to be a day to be remembered. Somehow, she felt quite sure of that.
Margaret sat in front with Andrew and Tessa sat in the leather seat in the body of the brake beside Daniel Meldrum. The other seats had been removed to accommodate the wheel-chair and she knew that he was comfortable and happy.
The fact she felt necessary to Andrew’s grandfather made up for a great many things at Glenkeith these days. It cancelled out much of the feeling of intrusion which Hester MacDonald did her best to foster by word and look, making her feel useful and needed. After all, Daniel was still the head of the house at Glenkeith.
She dared not think what she would do when Andrew became master at Glenkeith and hoped for many reasons that the day was still far distant when he would take over from his grandfather.
The road to Braemar was breathtakingly lovely, and as they passed the gates of Balmoral Castle they saw that they were open.
“I can hardly wait!” Tessa said. “I can hardly wait!”
Never in all her life before had she driven through such a silence of trees and rugged hills, with the road cut through a deep defile and climbing all the way and the sunshine filtering greenly down on to the fallen leaves, It was a Royal day, Daniel said. They always seemed to get them on Deeside for extra special occasions!
Braemar itself was full of sunshine, and the Cluny Water looked bluer than the sky. The lovely little town was like a jewel set on green velvet with all the roads leading to it full of traffic.
It seemed to Tessa that all the world and his wife had come to Braemar to-day and nobody seemed to have come alone. The whole gay cavalcade of the Games was taking shape before her eyes and the excitement in her was deeper than curiosity. This was the traditional Highland scene and she was part of it, at last. Pipers marched and kilted dancers hurried to the arena in the Mils, while sightseers spilled into the quiet glen from the south and east and west along every road that would get them there in time for the first event.
Magnificent Highlanders in full regalia marched solidly behind their pipe majors as band after band formed in the long procession to the field, and the whole air was alive with pipe music and the laughter of children and the tramp of feet.
It was a wonderful setting. Tessa could feel the strong pull of legend as she visualized other gatherings on these green hillsides, the massing of the clans of long ago, the raising of a Standard on the Braes of Mar for a Cause that was not yet lost, the faith of the ancient Earl in the first Jacobite Rebellion. What days those had been, when the father of Bonnie Prince Charlie had come back to claim a throne!
They had been exciting days, brave days, and because, even remotely, the blood of the Scot ran in her veins, she felt herself stirred by their memory.
“You’re glad we came?”
Andrew was standing at her elbow, but she could not look round at him because she felt so perilously near to tears. Foolish to be stirred like this? Foolish to let him see how deeply she had been moved? She did not know. All she knew was that, for a moment, a barrier which had seemed impenetrable was down and he had come to ask her if she was enjoying herself.
“I’d like it better if I thought that you were glad,” she said.
“I’ve seen it all before,” he answered, “but perhaps never quite so gay. Your enthusiasm may be infectious, of course.”
He sounded kinder, not quite so remote, and a quick, warm response ran through her, like the first warmth of spring when it strikes the wintry earth. It awakened joy and a fierce, almost primitive gladness, and suddenly she was laughing up at him with her eyes alight with happiness.
“I want to see everything at once!” she told him. “I want to go everywhere, watch every single event! Where shall we sit?”
“We have special seats in the stand,” he said. “At the side, I’m afraid, because my grandfather will have to sit in his chair at the edge of the track. The stewards have been very good about that. They arranged it as soon as they knew we were coming.”
Margaret came forward, wheeling the chair, and Andrew made way for their little procession through the fast-thickening crowd.
Everyone seemed to be in the highest of spirits and the majority of the men wore the kilt. It was right in that setting. N
othing else could have stood beside it. Andrew looked bigger and broader than ever, standing out conspicuously even in that distinguished gathering, and Tessa felt her heart catch more than once at sight of him. If only he would always be as kind and thoughtful as he was to-day!
He settled his grandfather beside the track, claiming their seats in the covered stand behind him, but they did not sit down immediately. Tessa was too excited to sit. The whole arena was alive with men in kilts and tartan-clad dancers waiting for their particular events to go up and the platforms were ready and the Royal dais.
“Take Tessa round the field,” Margaret said. “I’ll stay with Grandfather and talk to everybody!”
Andrew looked down at Tessa.
“Would you like to come?” he asked. “You really ought to see the other side of the arena.”
“I’d love it!” Tessa said, and her heart seemed to miss a beat.
She went with him with an eagerness which forestalled her gratitude and made it unnecessary for her to thank him, and she did not stop to wonder why her heart felt like a singing bird and every nerve in her body vibrated to a new tempo of happiness. She accepted all these things as part of the sheer joy of living, and her delight shone in her face and sparkled in her eyes so that more than one pair of older and wiser eyes were turned in their direction with an answering smile in their depths.
“They make a braw couple,” an old woman said as they passed her. “Isn’t he Andrew Meldrum o’ Glenkeith? I mind fine when his father used to come to the Games in his day.”
If Andrew heard the stray remark he did not make any sign, and Tessa hugged the little compliment to her heart in secret, thinking that the old Scots word “braw” was the most descriptive she had ever heard. It embraced splendour and simplicity and solid worth; it had a breadth and focus which the more ordinary adjectives could never hope to attain.
There was much to see on the far side of the arena and Andrew seemed determined that she should not miss one detail as they stepped between groups of people who had come prepared to camp for the day on the grassy banks which sloped down to the green oval in the middle of the field. In the general noisy hubbub of family disorganization Tessa was carried back to Rome and a day on the Campagna with Luigi and his sun-kissed children. It all seemed so natural, and it was the same all the world over.
They climbed higher and stood on a grassy mound to watch the bands massing beneath them, and Andrew told her that the great march past would be the most impressive sight of all.
Looking at him as he gazed down over the scattered crowd, she felt that he had regained a youthfulness which she might never have seen in other circumstances, as if for a day he had cast aside all the responsibilities of Glenkeith, and for a moment they seemed to stand there together for one split second of understanding on a hilltop.
If it could last, she thought. If only it could last!
“We ought to go down now.” She wondered if it had really been regret she had heard in his voice or if she had only imagined it. “We don’t want to miss the dancing.”
Before they reached the stand there was a flurry at the main gates and an expectant hush before a low, reverberating roar of applause broke from the crowd and the first Royal car came into view.
Tessa stood on tiptoe to see the Queen, but there was a little knot of people between them and the rail and she was not quite tall enough to see over their heads. Before she could even feel disappointment, however, Andrew’s strong hands had circled her waist and he was holding her up, holding her against him as if she had been a child.
“Can you see now?” he asked.
“Yes. Oh, yes!” Tessa breathed.
The Queen looked radiant. Tessa thought that she had never seen anyone so beautiful, nor so completely happy.
“She has—a shining smile!” she said as Andrew put her back on to her feet again. _
“There are—lots of smiles like that,” he said awkwardly.
Impulsively she turned and put a hand on his arm.
“This is my most perfect day!” she said.
He did not answer that. Perhaps he did not know how to answer.
When they reached the stand they found Margaret and her grandfather surrounded. Tessa saw Andrew look swiftly at the group and then away, but it was some minutes before she picked out Nigel Haddow.
“I had forgotten that the Haddows would be here,” Andrew said. “They apparently have a house-party at Ardnashee.”
Nigel made his way through the crowd towards them as the loud-speakers announced the first of the dancing events and the judges settled in their places before the various platforms where the competitors stood ready.
“Hullo!” he said. “Have you been doing the rounds with Andrew? I hoped our seats would be somewhere near, as a matter of fact. I’ve got someone I want you to meet, Tessa.”
Tessa hated herself for feeling that Nigel had spoiled something, but she could not thrust the feeling aside. She could not say what it was, a thing so delicate, perhaps, that it had no name. A breath of something that was almost divine, a sweet, ethereal thing that might never be hers to recapture so long as she lived. She felt the need of it and the strong, bitter pang of loss before Nigel brought his guests over to be introduced.
“You’ve met Alice Walsh before, Drew,” he said, unconscious of any intrusion as they turned towards the stand. “Her brother is with her and a friend of his from London.” He looked down at Tessa, smiling broadly. “I want you to make an impression!” he told her. “He’s Hammond Ortry, the art critic, and I believe he’s one of the Powers That Be!”
“But I’m not that kind of painter!” Tessa protested shyly. “I only do it because I like to, because I must, if you understand what I mean?”
“I think you’re far too modest,” he told her, leading her forward. “Anyway, come and meet old Hammy, for better or worse!”
Tessa felt too weak to protest further. It seemed that she had been thrust into the centre of the stage while she only wanted to remain in the background, with Andrew.
“This is Tessa Halliday,” Nigel announced. “Alice Walsh and her brother, Orrnand, and Gavin Tulloch. And last but not least, Hammond Orty!”
Ortry was a tall, rather vague-looking man in his late thirties who was making a reputation for himself in the world of art, though Tessa had never even heard of him. She felt shy and inarticulate in his presence, wishing that Nigel had not stressed the fact that they should meet quite so heavily, and was left wondering what he had already told Hammond Ortry about her painting.
“I hear you are an artist, Miss Halliday, and that you have been fortunate enough to be able to study in Rome,” Ortry said a little wearily. “It is a very great advantage.”
Tessa supposed that he was constantly having people dragged before him who fancied that they could paint. “I lived in Rome,” she told him simply. “My home was there. My father tried to make a living out of painting but never really succeeded. Perhaps he would have done better now that pictures in the home are coming back into fashion,” she added. “He had a gift for landscape.”
“Which you have inherited?” he asked politely, smiling at his host rather than at this amazing child who fancied that she could paint. “You must let me see some of your work some time,” he added vaguely. “I shall be so very interested.”
“I only really paint to please myself,” Tessa replied, feeling that Nigel had been much too enthusiastic and that Ortry, as his guest, must only be trying to be polite. “I’ve never thought of exhibiting my work. It isn’t definite enough. It ought to have a form which I know isn’t there yet. I haven’t had the experience, you see.”
Hammond Ortry regarded her with a little more genuine interest.
“It’s quite astonishing,” he said, “to run up against someone so youthful who is conscious of her own limitations. Upon my word,” he added with a laugh, “it’s almost unnatural!”
“But conceivable, all the same.” Andrew’s voice at her elbow took
Tessa completely by surprise. “Do you think we should take our places?” he added. “We’re blocking people’s view standing here.”
“You’ll join us for lunch, won’t you?” Nigel suggested as they moved away. “May as well make it a party while we’re at it!”
Tessa was aware of Alice Walsh watching her covertly as they parted. She had not spoken after the first brief introduction, but there had been something proprietorial in the way she had looked at Nigel and her finely-pencilled brows had drawn together in a quick frown when he had suggested that they should all lunch together. Her tweeds had suggested Paris to Tessa rather than Edinburgh or Aberdeen, and her hair had been carefully dressed in a style which suited her to perfection but which was rather elaborate for the moors. She looked, Tessa mused interestedly, like some exotic hothouse bloom that had strayed, all unwittingly, into a summer field.
“You won’t like Alice Walsh much,” Margaret said unexpectedly. “She’s not a genuine sort of person at all.” That was perhaps as far as Margaret ever went. She rarely took it upon herself to criticize anyone, perhaps because she had grown up too close to adverse criticism all her life, but she had found something in Alice Walsh which she had disliked instinctively and she passed the warning on to Tessa as effectively as she knew how.
Nigel was determined, however, that they should not turn down his invitation. When it came to the luncheon interval he walked across from the far side of the stand to say that he had reserved a table in the refreshment marquee and wheeled Daniel Meldrum’s chair across there himself.
Andrew and Margaret and Tessa followed, threading their way through the crowd at the back of the stand and out across the field. Under the trample of feet the grass had become bare and dusty and the tents were filling up with thirsty patrons ail discussing the merits of the various competitors they had been watching for the past two hours.
“I’ve asked your mother to join us,” Nigel told Margaret as they passed into the yellow light of the marquee. “I called at Glenkeith on our way over to ask if I could offer anyone a lift, but you had already gone. You were certainly quick off your mark this morning!”
Master of Glenkeith Page 9
